Today I have the pleasure of being part of the GOING OVER Blog Tour. GOING OVER is an amazing novel by Beth Kephart, a Romeo and Juliet story set in the 80s with two teens in love on opposite sides of the Berlin wall. Once you read GOING OVER I could not forget it and that is why I am so very excited to have Beth Kephart over today with a guest post. So, please stay and get to know a little bit more about this novel and it's amazing author then don't forget to enter the giveaway at the very end. GOOD LUCK!!

In the early 1980s Ada
and Stefan are young, would-be lovers living on opposite sides of the
Berlin Wall--Ada lives with her mother and grandmother and paints
graffiti on the Wall, and Stefan lives with his grandmother in the East
and dreams of escaping to the West.

“A stark reminder of the power of hope, courage, and love.”-Booklist, starred review

I was a child writer-dreamer who never strayed far from that path. Today I’m the award-winning author of seventeen books—dreaming my way toward more by night, while running a boutique marketing communications firm by day. I'm privileged to teach creative nonfiction at the University of Pennsylvania in spring semesters. I love writing about the intersection of place and memory for the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. I am honored to review literature for the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Always and most importantly, I am privileged to be a mom.

At the Core of
the Novel: Truth

It happened almost all of a sudden—how real Berlin 1983 began to
feel in my heart and mind. I had been to the city, of course, but only as a
tourist. I had read books, magazine stories, transcripts, had watched
documentaries and films. I had listened to the music, pressed replay a thousand
times as David Bowie sung his famed Wall song. I had danced to "99
Luftballoons."But I had never been a graffiti artist. And I'd never lived in
East Berlin. And I wasn’t a survivor of
the World War II, nor a little Turkish boy afraid for his mother. Such things
didn't matter, as it turned out. The story was right there, within reach.

Two sources (beyond the travel) made the making of this book
palpable, alive. The first was a self-published memoir by Eloise Schindler
called West Berlin Journal: Stories of
Culture, the Cold War, and the Kreuzberg Kiez.

What a gift this was. The wife of a German-born minister named
Martin Schindler, Eloise, an American, spent four crucial years—1982-1986—in
Kreuzberg while her husband served as the reverend of St. Thomas Church, in
"the least desirable parish" of West Berlin. From their vantage point
in that historic, six-story church, Eloise and Martin could see the East, they
could watch the wall, they could engage with the Turkish families that brought
their children to the church school, they could revolt with the squatters and
the artists.

Eloise tells a riveting story in her memoir. Through her words, I
was transported. I found (in my imagination) a young girl named Ada who works
in the St. Thomas Church school, who lives among squatters, who cares about the
Turkish families who have arrived in West Berlin as "guest workers."

The second source was, of all things, a Popular Mechanics story about a certain escape that took place in
1983. Two friends rigged the risky adventure up. They lived to tell the tale. Two
years later, a reporter for Popular
Mechanics retraced every mechanical detail, and I, being the nerd I am,
discovered the story of long ago. I dialed the age of one of the real heroes
back, gave him a name—Stefan—and his own home, his own job, his own world. I gave
him a lost grandfather, a suspicious grandmother, a telescope. I gave him a
reason to live.

Fact inspiring fiction. The beating of two voices. A story that
kept unfolding in my sleep.

GOING OVER VIDEO

I'm giving away a signed copy of Going Over + an audiobook! One winner in the US or Canada. Just fill out the form below and GOOD LUCK!!

Hello! I am the Ravenous Reader and I love to read and find my happiness in devouring as many YA novels as I possibly can. When I am not reading then you can find me chatting up books with my blogging buddy and bookish friends to the point of distraction. I am also extremely fortunate to live in an area that has a plethora or YA events that I love chronicling on my Instagram account.